By Mary Beth SheridanPublished February 26th 2009 in The Washington Post

The Senate today passed a bill that for the first time would give
the District a full voting member of the House of Representatives. But
senators managed to attach an amendment that would scrap most of the
District's local gun-control laws.

The 61-37 vote marked the
first time in 31 years that the Senate had approved a D.C.
voting-rights bill. The addition of the gun language could complicate
the bill's passage into law, however, since it will be necessary to
reconcile the Senate version of the legislation with the companion bill
in the House. Voting-rights supporters hope the gun amendment can be
removed in those negotiations.

The House is expected to approve the D.C. vote bill next week, and President Obama has indicated he will sign it into law.

"We
are coming to a pivotal moment in a march that has gone on for years
and years," said Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.), the co-sponsor of
the D.C. vote legislation, in a brief speech before the vote.

The
Senate's Republican leader, Mitch McConnell (Ky.) said the bill
violated the constitutional provision that House representatives should
be chosen by the "people of the several states." The District is not a
state, he noted.

"The Constitution is short because its authors
wanted it to be clear," McConnell said. He added: "it could not have
been more so" on the issue of House representation.

The D.C. vote
bill would expand the House permanently by two seats. One would go to
the strongly Democratic District, while the other would go to the next
state in line to pick up a seat based on population count. For two
years, that seat would be Republican-leaning Utah. It would then pass
to whichever state qualified based on Census results.

Similar
legislation died in the Senate two years ago after passing the House.
But it benefited this time from the Democrats' pickup of at least seven
seats in the last elections.

If it becomes law, the bill will
expand the House for the first time since 1913. But it is likely to
face a legal challenge that could go all the way to the Supreme Court.

The
gun amendment is similar to a sweeping measure approved by the House
last year that was fiercely opposed by the D.C. government. It would
limit the District's authority to restrict firearms, repeal the D.C.
semiautomatic gun ban and remove gun-registration requirements. It drew
bipartisan support. Among those supporting the amendment were
Virginia's Democratic senators, Mark Warner and Jim Webb.

Opponents denounced it on the Senate floor.

"It's
reckless, it's irresponsible, it will lead to more violence," charged
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.). She said that approval of the
amendment would be "the first step to removing all common-sense gun
regulation all over this land."

The sponsor of the amendment,
Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) said his goal was "to remove the tremendous
barriers and burdens on law-abiding citizens" in the city who were
seeking to "protect themselves in their own homes."

He pointed to
a large chart showing the D.C. murder rate over the years. "We want the
law-abiding citizens to have the arms--not just the criminals," he
said. Ensign charged that the D.C. government hadn't gone far enough in
reforming its gun laws since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the
city's handgun ban last year.

"The
District of Columbia leadership is fully united in its opposition to
unwarranted amendments that would dramatically damage the District's
carefully revised gun law and expose the District to great harm through
the undoing of its laws," D.C. Council President Vincent C. Gray and
Council Member Phil Mendelson, chairman of the council's public-safety
commission, said in a letter to Congress released yesterday.

The
voting-rights bill was the first such measure to pass the Senate since
1978, when Congress approved a constitutional amendment that would have
given the District a House representative and two senators. That
amendment died eight years later after failing to win enough support
from the states.